Posts Tagged ‘Chadema’

When President Magufuli was addressing a political rally in Manyoni Township, Singida region on the 29th July 2016, he referred to the opposition in Tanzania as a dying snake. He said “after you cut off a snake’s head, it keeps thrashing its tail. You may think it hasn’t died, but it has”. It appears that he believes the recent announced move of protests by the leading opposition party in Tanzania, CHADEMA, are signs of a dying party. He said “where are those parties? They are dead.” In the same rally he dared CHADEMA to go to the streets and demonstrate. The President threatened in ‘street’ Swahili “watakiona cha mtema kuni. Wasinijaribu. Sijaribiki.” Meaning he isn’t testable and he will crash them heavily.

CHADEMA announced a new operation called UKUTA, meaning an alliance against dictatorship in Tanzania. The Swahili word ‘ Umoja’, which I translated here as an alliance, is actually misused since it was the decision of one party. Even parties under UKAWA, a consortium of opposition parties that supports the people’s constitution, are not part of UKUTA. How CHADEMA ended up using the word Umoja is either a result of arrogance, ignorance or simply a lack of a proper word to have in an announce-able term UKUTA, which literarily means the WALL. President Magufuli may have interpreted the lack of an actual alliance as an indication of the fall of UKAWA, thus the snake parable.

The President is prone to issuing threats. He appears to enjoy it. In his coronation as the chairperson of CCM, he raised eyebrows when he said that had he been a CCM leader during its presidential primaries, he would have liquidated all CCM congress national executive members who were pro-Edward Lowassa. When the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces makes a remark like that, it is really threatening. If he cannot tolerate dissent within his own party what will he do to the opposition? The dead snake parable leaves a lot to be desired.

For years opposition activists and some political analysts have been predicting the end of the CCM regime. In the course of three elections, CCM’s popularity has been dwindling from 80% in the year 2005 to 61% in 2010 and 58% in 2015 (if we can take official Presidential elections results as an indication of overall party popularity). The last election was a clear test of CCM’s ability to maintain power as several of its influential members left for the opposition including two Former Prime Ministers who are now in CHADEMA. However, since the election of Magufuli as President and eventually the head of CCM, the party seems to be charting ways to survive. Will CCM survive? Will the opposition thrive? These are the questions I attempt to put to the readers of this article and our political analysts who are seemingly muted.

CCM is an authoritarian party in all sense and purpose. It is a dominant single party with some ability to adapt. President Kikwete’s methods of adaptation were through opening up; for example, allowing the Parliament to hold the Executive to account. He lost a prime minister following a parliamentary work and reshuffled his cabinet thrice, strengthened the National Audit Office and allowed free debate of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) report of government accounts and did not hinder opposition parties to operate freely and organize. He faced criticism within CCM for being too liberal and later the opposition called him weak. Kikwete’s guided nomination of Magufuli as CCM presidential candidate is arguably one of his Machiavellian tactics of survival. President Magufuli in particular and CCM in general takes the opposite route to Kikwete. The true colours of an authoritarian, dominant CCM are starting to show.

Authoritarian parties like CCM have two main goals. First, to hold onto power by eliminating real and perceived threats. Second, to generate popular support in order to achieve development goals. In his book, The Dictator’s Dilemma, Bruce Dickson (2016) observes that the above goals are achieved through the survival strategy of legitimation, co-optation and repression.

President Magufuli’s legitimation process is through war on corruption, ambitious development agenda and straight talk to the population. After he came to power in November 2015, he launched a crackdown against corruption and has continued the crackdown ever since. He has as well announced anti corruption crackdown within CCM. His anti corruption platform has been a platform of the opposition for a decade. The author and his colleagues, like the former CHADEMA Secretary General, Wilbrod Slaa, used the parliament to legitimise opposition politics by raising corruption scandals and holding the government to account. The opposition in general and CHADEMA in particular lost the platform during the 2015 elections and literally handed it to the CCM candidate. Other parties like ACT Wazalendo had a more clear agenda on anti-corruption but its voice wasn’t heard in the campaign dominated by two candidates, one from CCM and the other a former CCM ex-Prime Minister running under the opposition alliance ticket of UKAWA. The CCM candidate was announced winner and he wasted no time in starting an anti-corruption agenda. He now owns it.

Tanzanians hated CCM because of, among other things, its inherently corrupt nature. The people of Tanzania have started to fall in love with the new no nonsense leader. He got them instantly and the opposition lost an agenda despite trying to discredit him on his lack of following due process. The opposition used elitist arguments. The common man and woman just wants action, not legal technicalities and that’s what the President is giving them.

President Magufuli sugarcoated the anti-corruption agenda with an ambitious development agenda. Every time he speaks he reiterates the industrialisation agenda. He uses a simple language that wananchi understand. Pockets of the urban-based, middle to upper class segments of the country see his agenda as unclear and largely ambiguous. But many more Tanzanians have swallowed the message as it is wholeheartedly. There is limited evidence of the President’s successful implementation of his development agenda. All projects he has opened to date are projects that were started under Kikwete. But citizens don’t care. Because he has won them on anti-corruption. The President currently talks about new aircrafts for dying Air Tanzania and people cheer while less than 5% of them fly. He got it. He won the narrative. The opposition lost it.

The President has embraced CCM cadres who lost the CCM primaries during the 2015 parliamentary elections. With this action, he has kept most members of the 11th parliament on their toes. Losers of the primaries are being ‘fed’ to be able to go back and contest against sitting members in the next election. Sitting members will now work to please the President so that, as the chairman of their party, he doesn’t cut them off during the nomination in 2020. In short, President Magufuli has created a shadow parliament of his own. The political genius many people underestimate. He now has a carrot and stick for Members of Parliament (MPs). He has a cat to threaten most of them. As a result, we will likely witness a parliament that becomes more toothless and subservient. Haven’t we already started seeing that?

Some sectors of society, sectors important to a vibrant and open democracy, face quiet co-option. Academia and media come to mind. Open repression is reserved for political parties. The President himself announced a ban on public rallies by political parties. The ban is completely unconstitutional and against political parties’ enabling legislation. In his address at Manyoni on the 29th July he clarified by allowing Members of Parliament to conduct rallies in their own constituencies and since he is the President he is the only one who can do rallies all over the country. This move is an effort to channel only one point of view to the public – that’s of the President and his party and in the process frustrate other parties into oblivion.

Under those circumstances many people have started to write obituaries for the opposition.

However, I would still argue that these circumstances are at times a necessary condition for the rise of real opposition politics. One-agenda politics must pave way for issues-based politics. Repression is conducive for likeminded members of the opposition parties to work together without worries. The liberal approach of President Kikwete created an environment of envy amongst comrades and a sense of ‘it is our time to eat’. It has had detrimental consequences for politics and development in the country, and for the welfare of the opposition.

The real opposition will have to engage in providing a critical analysis of the regime and offer an alternative policy. Issues like budget management will be critical as signs are out there that the fifth phase government will have more adverse audit opinion than any other before. Out of budget expenditures are rampant and more threatening is the drawdown of foreign reserve. It has never happened in the previous 20 years for the Tanzanian foreign reserve to decline and it was happening even before Magufuli started to implement his budget. US$500m has been withdrawn from our foreign reserve between November 2015 and June 2016. The amount remaining is enough to serve the country only for 3.6 months. The best practice for developing countries is to have a reserve enough to cover at least 6 months.

Tax revenues are still at the levels of the previous administration. High profile announcements of monthly revenues collection are no longer there because the taxman was collecting arrears and the government attacks ‘the chicken laying golden eggs’ i.e. the business community, without adequately investing in alternative sources of revenue for the country.

These are the issues the opposition must bring up. Well-articulated issues backed by expert evidence. Critical analysis of data and of government actions and reactions. The era of scandal-raising politics is over; the regime has co-opted it. Only politics of solutions can support the opposition now. The steady slide towards repression must be fought vehemently. But if the opposition does not articulate issues affecting the day to day lives of people, the repression will be supported by people. A coalition of likeminded people who have credentials to fight against corruption and articulate developmental politics must emerge and take up the ideological bankruptcy existing in the country now. Lack of issues and business as usual weaken the opposition and discredit most of our moves, including the recent UKUTA operation.

Once our modus operandi changes and we start tackling issues and articulate them, the real opposition will emerge, stronger and ready to govern.

This entry is objective. It is written after much reflections and thoughts. It is an expression of my reflections. I declare the following:

Mr. Zitto Kabwe is my good friend and we are writing a book together.

Mr. Freeman Mbowe is my home MP. We come from the same village and are neighbors. We are, in many angles, a family. I also worked very closely with him during the 2010 elections and admired his strengths. Learnt so much from this experience.

My father, Mr. Clement Kwayu, is a local councilor with Chadema ticket.

I am a loyal member of Chadema. I supported the party since when I could remember. My party card membership is from 2005.

I ran for a women special seat MP in 2010.

I am now a development and management consultant at BUMACO and a research affiliate of the University of Oxford, Department of Education. I do not plan to ran for any office in the near future as my focus is on academic research and writing.

In the early hours of Friday 22nd Nov, news broke that Chadema, the main opposition party, has stripped off Zitto Kabwe and Dr. Kitila Mkumbo leadership positions in the party. (For a coherent analysis and events as they unfolded see Mtega’s analysis at http://mtega.com/2013/11/25/ccm-hoyee-zitto-and-chadema-in-a-mess-as-usual-its-all-about-2015/) The former was the Deputy Secretary General of the party and the Deputy Opposition leader in the Parliament, while the latter was the member of the party’s central committee. Both of them are young, energetic and highly educated people. Their works are known and respected both locally and internationally. For example, both of them have international publications- meaning that they command respect and contribute to the reviewed knowledge. Dr. Mkumbo is a senior lecturer at the University of Dar-es-Salaam and he has published in peer reviewed academic journals. He is an authority in a number of aspects on education psychology. Mr. Kabwe is becoming one of the leading experts in the war against corruption. This is owed to his continuous dangerous and risk fight against corruption in Tanzania. His name appears in the recent best-sellers book on corruption- Global Corruption by Cockcroft.. In the same vein he has been engaged himself in a herculean task of fighting tax injustice and illicit money flow. Of late, Mr. Kabwe was among experts who participated in a Europe fact-finding mission commissioned by a coalition of European NGOs to investigate on illicit money flows. He also invited to present a paper on illicit money flows in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) summit in London 2013.

In the local public sphere, Zitto Kabwe is a development- minded leader. This has led him to look at things from a bipartisan perspective. It is costing him. He is paying a high price for this. I will talk about his work at domestic level from my various encounters with him. The idea of writing a book with Mr. Kabwe was born out of our discussion of why poverty persists in Tanzania amid a decade long 7% average economic growth. The book has progressed but due to his busy schedule it has been difficult to meet the deadlines. For those who have met him before may testify to the fact that Kabwe discussions and talks revolve around development issues in Tanzania. He speaks about rural poverty and constantly thinking of ways to bring about rural development in Tanzania. Eradicating the rampant rural poverty in Tanzania is his ultimate wish.

In that respect, Kabwe came up with the idea of extending social security to farmers. Conventionally in Tanzania, social security has only been something for formally employed people, who make an insignificant percentage of Tanzanian population. Most of the productive age in Tanzania are engaged in informal economic activities most of its being self-employed peasantry farming. Kabwe piloted his idea in Kigoma through a cooperative known as Rumako. Him and NSSF raised awareness and enrolled 750 farmers into the scheme. When that worked well and successful, Kabwe thought of the plan to extend this to other regions in the country. He linked my employer company- BUMACO with NSSF – so as we can do the same for farmers in Kilimanjaro. The rationale for working with BUMACO is due to its 30-years track record of working with cooperatives in rural settings. BUMACO has a network of 20 SACCOS in rural Kilimanjaro. Kabwe ‘s wish is to extend social security to farmers in other regions all over Tanzania. He keeps saying this is transformational.

Being a member of Chadema I am ever proud of having a party leader such as him. He is always working very hard. This year alone, Kabwe has put so much in his parliamentary committee ( #PAC), and party membership recruitment and public rallies (refer to his 9 days party tour and rallies he did in North-Western Tanzania in September). He has his weaknesses as any other human being, but the best thing is to capitalize on his strengths so as to counter his weaknesses. Why does the party keep looking for his mistakes? Why? Is this what politics is all about? Is this the kind of political change we want?

Kabwe has stood up on principles such as refusing to accept sitting allowances as well as standing firm on the parties to be audited. The party, if anything, should have supported these two principles. In fact I think the party should have adopted them in the list of its main agenda. If the party leadership keeps calling for the changes, yet keeping fighting internally with those who are trying to bring real and painful changes, what does it expect the public to think of them?

To cut the long story short, I think the party central committee decision was wrong to strip Kabwe’s off leadership position based on the following reasons among many others:

The timing of the decision is insensitive, and if anything a testimony to the unfounded claims to strip Kabwe off his leadership position. Of late, since Kabwe announced that PAC has ordered political parties’ accounts to be audited, we have been reading defensive reactions and attacks directed to him from the two main political parties in Tanzania. Even if Kabwe did not inform his bosses or rather collogues prior to his announcement (which I think there was no need to since he was acting as a PAC chairman and not party puppet), why was the party so defensive???? What’s the implication of such a reaction with regards to the ‘Mkakati wa Siri’ interpretation? All these are many questions that one has to ask. The events that unfolded before the central committee decision do not add up to the central committee’s ‘excuse’ given for stripping off Kabwe’s leadership position

The editor of the ‘Mkakati wa Siri’- Dr Mkumbo declared that Kabwe was not aware of the document. Even the language used in the document refers to him in the ‘third person’ – i.e. he was not part of him. A credible committee should not use feeble evidence to make such huge judgments.

The party’s internal elections have always been dramatic and not to the best of democratic ideals. Personally, I vied for a special seat MP in 2010. To date, I do not understand the process and criteria to which 25 women were nominated to be part of the key branch (the parliament) of our esteemed republic. These women legislate for the country and use millions of tax- man money as salaries and allowances. Thus, I can never trust (100%) the ‘fairness’ of decisions made by the central committee.

Political analysts with interests on Tanzania’s party politics can go on analyzing this drama. Mine is not a political analysis per se, but my honest reflection of the ongoing drama in relations to my experience.

CAG yet to receive parties audit reports

NCCR-Mageuzi chairman James Mbatia refuted reports that the party has not submitted its audit reports for four consecutive years.

Dar es Salaam. The office of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) said yesterday it was yet to receive audit reports from any of the nine political parties getting subvention.

The remark is in response to a controversy triggered by remarks of the chairman of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Mr Zitto Kabwe. His committee has since summoned six of the parties to explain why their accounts were yet to be audited.

The response by the deputy CAG, Mr Francis Mwakapalila, is likely to intensify the subvention controversy which has put the political parties and Mr Kabwe in a face-off in the last one week.

Zitto has accused nine political parties with representation in the Parliament of failing to submit their financial accounts to the CAG for auditing. He directed the registrar of political parties to suspend the subsidies of the parties for their failure to comply with the guiding law.

Zitto claimed that the parties had failed to submit audit reports accounting for a total of Sh67.7 billion in the past four years — a requirement made by the Political Parties (Amendment) Act, 2009.

The deputy CAG told The Citizen that the truth about the controversy will be known on Friday at a joint meeting of all the parties.

He, however, clarified that the CAG’s office had allowed parties to seek the services of external auditors. According to Mr Mwakapalila, the CAG can contract qualified firms to audit the political parties.

“Political parties are expected to maintain proper accounts every year and submit their financial reports, audited by the CAG, to the registrar of political parties,” he detailed.

PAC has summoned the parties on Friday to explain why they failed to submit the said reports. “We will know who was right or wrong, I hope the CAG will also be there. Let’s be patient,” he added.

The nine political parties have been insisting that they have submitted their audited accounts to the CAG and accused Mr Kabwe of overstepping his mandate.

Already, the Civic United Front (CUF) said it would not attend the Friday meeting and accused Mr Kabwe of acting beyond his legal powers.

The party’s deputy secretary general (Mainland), Mr Julius Mtatiro, said his party was not on the list of the parties that have not submitted their audit reports.

The ruling CCM has strongly accused the PAC, saying it was aware of the requirements of the law and that the it had has been submitting its audit reports to the CAG.

Its Publicity and Ideology secretary, Mr Nape Nnauye, said the Tanzania Audit Corporation has audited its accounts from 2003/04 to 2010/2011. “We’re waiting for the 2011/2012 audit report which is still with the external auditors,’’ adding that the report would be forwarded with the CAG once it is ready.

NCCR-Mageuzi chairman James Mbatia refuted reports that the party has not submitted its audit reports for four consecutive years.

“Our accounts were audited and we sent reports to the registrar,’’ he said.

He said, however, that the CAG’s office was cash-strapped and unable to oversee the auditing of political parties.

Meanwhile, two PAC members yesterday defended Mr Kabwe against attacks by political parties allegedly for personalising the subvention issue, saying the matter was owned by the Committee.

They told The Citizen separately that Zitto had full blessings of members of the PAC before he made the statement to the effect that accounts of nine political parties had not been audited for four years.

“That is the position of our committee and not Zitto’s creations as political parties want the public to believe,” said a member of the committee, Mr Abdul Marombwa.

He said they were wondering why the political parties were personalising the issue while the matter surfaced the committee met registrar of political parties, Mr Francis Mutungi, who revealed the information.

“There is no Zitto’s agenda here, we all sat and agreed on the matter,” he said.

Another PAC member who asked not be named said their team was implementing Political Parties (Amendment) Act, 2009, which requires them to submit the parties accounts to the CAG for auditing and forward the audit reports to the registrar.

“The registrar confirmed to us none of the nine parties fulfilled that legal requirement,” he said.

“That was not Zitto’s statement, it was the outcome of the meeting,” he insisted.

14. -(1) Every political party which has been fully registered shall—
a) maintain proper accounts of the funds and property of the party;
b) submit to the Registrar –

“(i) an annual statement of the account of the political party audited by the Controller and Auditor-General and the report of the account.” (This became law in March, 2009)

ii) an annual declaration of all the property owned by the party.

(2) The Registrar, after inspecting any accounts or report submitted pursuant to this section may, for the benefit of the members or the public, publish any matter relation to the funds, resources or property of any party or the use of such funds, resources or property.

(3) The Registrar shall publish in the official Gazette, an annual report on the audited accounts of every party.

18. -(1) Subventions granted to a party may be spent only on

(a) the parliamentary activities of a party;
(b) the civil activities of a party;
(c) any lawful activity relating to an election in which a party nominates acandidate;
(d) any other necessary or reasonable requirement of a party.

(2) Subventions granted to a political party shall be accounted for to the Registrar, separately from the accounting for other funds of the party.

(3) Any party which fails or neglects to account for subventions in accordance with this Act, shall forfeit the right to any subsequent subvention due to the party in accordance with this Act.

(4) Where the Registrar is for any reasonable cause, dissatisfied with any account of subventions submitted by any party, so much of the subvention which has not been accounted for or has not been accounted for satisfactorily, shall be deducted form any subsequent subvention due to the party.

(5) If by reason of failure to submit an account or for any other reason, the Registrar has reason to suspect that any offence under the Penal Code may have been committed in relation to the money which has not been committed in relation to the money which has not be been accounted for, he may make a report to a police station, and the officer in charge of that police station shall cause the matter to be investigated.

18A. Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 14 and 18, every political party receiving subvention in accordance with this Act shall, not later than 3151
October every year, submit to the Registrar financial statements and audited accounts reflecting any other source of funds and details regarding the manner in which such funds were used.” (became law in 2009)